Times 2006 4


	Graphic Enterprises - Home of The Pioneer Times a Web News site about Re-Enacting and Living History

This article on Fort Harrod - reprinted from the July 05 edition of The Pioneer Times CD-Magazine

Take a Trip with Us To

Visit Fort Harrod,
Kentucky's First Settlement

Harrodsburg, Kentucky

By Kathy Cummings

Although we have often written about other 18^th century forts including Fort Boonesborough in Kentucky and Fort Randolph in Point Pleasant, WV it has been years since we visited the first fort in Kentucky – FortHarrod or simply Harrodstown.

From ``History of Kentucky" by TempleBodley – ``1774 was a year of outstanding importance in the history of Kentucky for it was then that the first attempt was made to found a settlement there. Among the men who had been members of Bullitt's party surveying land along the Ohio two years before was James Harrod. He then learned of the rich Bluegrass Region of central Kentucky and determined to settle there. On his return to the Monongahela region he gathered a party of about 50 frontiersmen and in the spring of 1774 went down the Ohio and up the Kentucky to a point afterward called Harrod's Landing, and thence a short distance overland to the head of Dick's River. There they laid out lots and began building log cabins for a town, which they called Harrodstown…."

So step through the gates with us and visit the present reconstructed fort. Although we had not visited in recent years, there were a few pleasant surprises on the inside.

The Spring

Early Kentucky was covered with trees. We read numerous accounts of the lush green countryside. It was a pleasant surprise to find some well established trees within the fort walls. This shady area above shows the spring within the fort's enclosure. Although it was often contaminated by human and animal waste the spring played an important role at Fort Harrod. Under times of attack the spring kept the settlers from having to venture outside the fort walls as was recorded in other places like Bryans Station.

``When the town was laid out the town lots were of one half acre and the outlots five acres. There corn was first raised…"From W. H. Bogart ``Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky".

The one room school

Harrodsburg is said to have had the first school in Kentucky. It was started by Mrs. Jane Coomes, a Catholic from Maryland.

Inside the school house.

Interiors in the fort show a great attention to detail.

Lower level of the George Rogers Clark Blockhouse


	A sign explains to visitors how Clark conceived his plan of attack for the Illinois territory while living at Fort Harrod. Upstairs in the blockhouse are books and maps - replicas of journals and books of George Rogers Clark.




			The powder magazine.




			A mattress on the bed rustled as if it really contains corn shucks.


	Above the fireplace in the James Harrod blockhouse is a distress horn. It is said that during Indian attacks such a horn was used to call settlers from the fields back to the fort.


	Standing in the top of the blockhouse you can imagine looking out on an Indian attack.




	The cabins at Fort Harrod have a lived in feel.




		Looking down the row of cabins.

``In the season of 1774 other parties of surveyors and hunters followed and during this year James Harrod erected a log cabin upon the spot where Harrodsburg now stands which rapidly grew into a station, doubtless the oldest in Kentucky…"

From Lewis Collins ``History of Kentucky"